Two-time Olympic bronze medalist and world champion Alexander Loginov said on Match TV that he competed in the sprint at the Alfa-Bank Russian Cup stage in Demino without having time to recover from an illness.

On Friday, Loginov took first place in the sprint in Demino. The 33-year-old athlete covered the 10 km distance in 22 minutes 3.3 seconds, making no mistakes at two shooting ranges. Kirill Bazhin came second, Roman Eremin rounded out the top three.

“I understood and realized that today it was impossible to force the speed, because I still cannot recover from the illness. Literally: I take a little jog on the street and start clearing my throat. Today this is what happened after the first round. I started coughing and, honestly, I stopped giving my best on the climbs a little. I understood that I had to go with a reserve and leave my strength for the final part of the race,” Loginov said on Match TV.

At these moments, a women’s sprint is taking place in Demino as part of the Russian Cup stage; watch the live broadcast on the Match TV channel, as well as on the websites matchtv.ru and sportbox.ru.

Olympic silver medalist biathlete Irina Kazakevich said on Match TV that the coaching staff did not allow her and Inna Tereshchenko to go to the start of the sprint race as part of the third stage of the Alfa-Bank Russian Cup.

The women’s sprint will take place on Friday and start at 14:00 Moscow time.

— Inna and I, unfortunately, will not take part in the race, it was the coach’s decision. We need to practice a little, because the illness has not gone away without a trace. We had the flu, it looked like the Hong Kong flu. We will continue to prepare and hope that we will receive permission to enter the mass start,” Kazakevich said on Match TV.

Watch the live broadcast of the men’s sprint at the stage of the Russian Biathlon Cup on the Match TV channel, as well as on the websites matchtv.ru and sportbox.ru from 10:30 Moscow time, the women’s race – from 13:50.

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The French team won the men’s relay at the Biathlon World Cup in Ruhpolding, Germany.

On Thursday, French biathletes completed the distance in 1 hour 8 minutes 58.1 seconds. Fabien Claude, Oscar Lombardo, Quentin Fillon Maillet and Eric Perrault played for the national team. The team took one penalty loop and also used four additional rounds on eight firing lines.

Second place was taken by the Norwegian team, which lost to the French by 6.2 seconds (7 additional rounds). The third result was shown by the German team (+7.9; 5).

On Friday, January 16, the women’s sprint is scheduled as part of the World Cup in Ruhpolding.